Unplanned Plot Twists in Children of the Dead City
Planning is great. I planned out Children of the Dead City chapter by chapter before I started writing. There were a few key scenes that I had imagined so vividly I couldn’t wait to get to them and write them down. And then I started writing it and, of course, the characters imposed themselves, things happened, and I discovered many interesting plot twists that I hadn’t planned out. I say discovered, because by the time you get a few chapters into writing such a long work you’re not really planning and plotting anymore, you’re just along for the ride, discovering and exploring the world and events with the characters.
So the bare bones of the story, some of the main things that happened to Dargoth and Hawk especially, were pre-planned, but a lot of the other BIG events in the book are things that just
happened. They just imposed themselves. I’ll try to reveal a few of them without giving spoilers:
- Finns’ backstory and that thing that happened about halfway through the book as a result
- The whole nightmarish flashback situation in the Orphan City
- The majority of Shila’s exploits including/especially the trials
- The discovery about the demons
- A certain character’s encounter with power
There were many other little details that were completely unplanned, but these are five major events in the book so I thought it would be interesting to share how they developed. There’s
a lot of discussion and argument about plotting vs. pantsing in the writing community online, but even for someone like me who plots out a book chapter by chapter the line between those two “methods” isn’t
really all that definitive.
